Are Night Sweats Causing You to Lose Sleep?

Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night or when the alarm clock goes off in the morning drenched in sweat? From pajamas to sheets to pillowcase, everything is wet through and through. Well, if this sounds familiar and you can relate, then you probably know that this is typical for anyone who suffers from night sweats.

Now, it is a normal physiologic occurrence to have a night sweat or two if your bedroom is overly heated, you have too many blankets or are wearing pajamas that are too heavy, exercise right before going to sleep or consume a spicy meal for dinner. However, in most instances, night sweats occur in women as extreme hot flashes as they go through the rite of passage of menopause. Other less common causes of night sweats can be the following: tuberculosis, lymphoma, low blood sugar and a condition known as idiopathic hyperhidrosis, whereby a person sweats too much without a known medical cause.

What Causes Sweat

As humans, we have our very own internal air conditioning system. When the temperature dial soars outside or when we pump up the volume to exercise, we cool our bodies down by producing sweat. This type of sweat is normal and comes as no surprise but when it happens at night and we get uncomfortable to the point of losing sleep. Well, that’s not fun and can be quite disturbing, and even more so when you realize that each person has somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 to 4 million sweat glands. You could literally end up in a lake when you have night sweats.

Our bodily temperature control system is guided by a gland called the hypothalamus. When the temperature of our body soars, this will trigger our sweat glands, specifically the eccrine glands, to kick into action. Other factors that alert the hypothalamus to start producing sweat are drops in estrogen (as in menopause), the flu or a virus and medications. And if you are a man and happen to have low testosterone or be on certain prostate cancer medication, you too can experience the male version of hot flashes.

When to Seek Treatment for Night Sweats

If night sweats have become a regular occurrence after ruling out environmental factors as possible cause, and sleep is consistently interrupted, it is probably best to visit a physician. After taking down a thorough medical history, your physician might order blood work, hormone and thyroid tests to get to the bottom of the cause of your night sweats.

In the meantime, there are a couple of tips to lessen the incidence and discomfort of night sweats:

Experiment with the thermostat in your home.

For some, herbal supplements, such as black cohosh in the form of pills or tea, can decrease the number of nightly hot flashes.

Use antiperspirant before going to sleep. Most of us put on antiperspirant under our arms during the day, as it works to block the production of sweat. Within the product is aluminum, which makes the sweat glands shrink and close, and hence we sweat less.

If you are experiencing severe night sweats or suffer from hyperhidrosis, you might be given a prescription for Robinul as it blocks certain fluids from being secreting by the body. Or another option would be to get Botox® injections, which was actually approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) back in 2004 as a treatment option for hyperhidrosis.

If you have night sweats, trouble sleeping or suspect you might have sleep apnea, please contact one of our medical concierges today at 1-855-863-4537 to schedule a free consultation.

About Phoebe Ochman

You say you want to bring in the New Year with a positive life change that will benefit you and your health. One of the most beneficial resolutions to your overall health is changing your sleep habits. For years you have heard that sleep is important, but have you really executed a plan to make […]

The sun is shining and the sky is blue. Keeping the top down on your convertible is a foregone conclusion. But wait, your palms become clammy, your heart starts to race, you can’t quite catch your breath and you have a sense of unexplainable danger. What is wrong? You might have just experienced a panic […]

You are addicted. You admit it. You can’t seem to get enough of the hit TV shows American Horror Story or The Walking Dead. After binge watching for 6 hours, you have finally unlocked somniphobia. But somniphobia isn’t just about getting to the end of a new series. Somniphobia is something real to people who […]

A recent study out of the UK has shown risk of developing gout was up to 60% higher among patients with sleep apnea versus individuals without sleep apnea. Gout is a complex form of arthritis that causes the body to make an excess of uric acid causing pain at the base of the joints. Sleep […]

About Us

Sleep Apnea Treatment Centers of America was founded for the sole purpose of providing superior sleep solutions for our patients to improve their overall quality of life.

We seek to gain a thorough understanding of each patient’s sleep disorder and individual medical needs in order to provide the best care and treatment solutions available to effectively treat their sleep condition.

What We Do

We offer a unique and comprehensive form of sleep apnea treatment that effectively seeks to cure sleep apnea over the course of an average of 6 treatments.

Having the ability to significantly impact our patients’ lives for the better through improved sleep and minimizing health risks is something that we take great pride in. Please take a look at what our patients are saying and view some of our Sleep Apnea success stories.